


Afterglow

by withered



Series: Who's been lovin' you good? [47]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Soulmate-Identifying Marks, not team Cap friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 22:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered
Summary: Bucky doesn't know what Tony's opinion on soulmates is, but he doesn't think Tony would appreciate the Winter Soldier being his.





	Afterglow

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song "Afterglow" by Taylor Swift

Souls are comparable to chemical reactions. Depending on external conditions, souls do anything from flicker, glow, explode and die out. Like stars, souls are brilliant, beautiful things; poetry in nuclear fission: natural, unstoppable; inevitable, all encased in human skin.

They're the genesis of every living person in existence, and the thought that souls, a pair (or several) could've been birthed by the universe itself so close in proximity that they gravitate and orbit until they're colliding and crashing and _becoming_ is romanticism at its finest.

It's why Bucky's so enamored with them.

He's waited patiently and impatiently in starts and stops throughout his life for his soulmate's words to appear on his skin for no other reason than the desire to know he has one at all, since the appearance of the soul words indicate nothing but the existence of the person who'd spoken them.

Bucky knows that not all soulmates are meant to be romantically entangled. Some are meant to just be friends, companions, teachers, guides. Bucky doesn't care. He wants so badly to know he's not alone, and it's an ache he clings to when he's drafted, and when he's strapped to a table and tortured hour after hour.

He hopes despite the lack of words on his skin that his situation is not a deal-breaker for his soulmate.

He may lack their words, but his skin is hardly pristine. He's covered in scars and bruises and burns, some heal - fade - go pinker - turn white - but it feels like the damage is done.

Still, he searches his body for any sign of a phrase, a letter, a punctuation, and hopes that the person meant for him won't think too poorly of his trauma, and the vices he accumulates in dealing with them. (He's certainly got his share of injuries from stupid night outs and shenanigans with his squad.)

Soulmates can't help but gravitate and cling, but Bucky doesn't want his to feel obligated. He knows he's a mess, especially after he's rescued from Hydra, but he'll try - he will. He doesn't have just them to think of anyway.

Steve - Steve needs him to be better, and Bucky doesn't want to let anyone down.

  
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By the time he falls from the freight train, by the time he wakes up on another table with a yawning blankness for a consciousness; his skin is unmarked of scars and empty of words.

He forgets why that bothers him.

He forgets why he keeps looking for them.

  
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When the Winter Soldier finally escapes almost a century later, he's surveying the produce aisle of a grocery store while the radio at the cash register runs through the news cycle of the day: The main story is about Iron Man. About Tony Stark. The Soldier isn't really paying that much attention. His skin is itching.

When he reaches the register to pay for his groceries, still scratching at his skin, he doesn't have the time to think of the oddity of it: Super Serum prevents any kind of allergic reactions so what could this be? When all hell breaks loose.

The Captain has found him.

  
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Tony Stark doesn't say two words to him from the day they meet to the day he and Steve double team him in that Hydra Bunker.

Not that Bucky can blame him. For all that Bucky has done - to Tony, to his family, to the team Tony has cobbled together and held together by sheer force of will - Steve has done worse: Betrayal never comes from strangers.

Bucky finds that he's grateful for it.

He remembers the dying light in a person's eyes, their soul extinguished when he snuffs their lives beneath his boots. He remembers. What he doesn't remember is the tragedy of being alive, of all the feelings that swirl like a storm around their souls brewing horrific survival from all the layers of hurt.

It's like watching a supernova up close.

It's impossible and terrifying, and Bucky doesn't want to be responsible for that kind of power, that kind of pain.

He's seen the devastation in Tony's eyes up close; can practically feel the way his soul splinters and shatters and breaks in the way his body struggles to contain it as Tony fights through a haze of grief as cold and unrelenting as Steve's conviction:_ "He's my friend. He's my friend. He's my friend."_

Bucky's feverish with his refusal even as he's lost to the throes of the familiar bloodlust of the Winter Soldier.

He has no stake in this. He doesn't know why he's here. He doesn't know anything. And he finds himself screaming through lips that don't move, but eyes that plead and beg: _I didn't ask for this. I don't want this. Steve. Steve. You have to stop me. Stop me, Steve._

Steve doesn't.

Bucky's skin burns.

  
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"How lucky," the Princess mocks, "you've got a soulmate."

Bucky stares, uncomprehending. Until it clicks, loud and resounding; a bullet in a chamber.

Her brows lift, unimpressed. "You don't know? The words are -"

"No," he interjects in a growl. "Don't. Just. Tell me where it is."

He doesn't need her to, actually. He can feel the words now that someone else has pointed them out, running along the line of his collarbone. They feel branded into bone. The words won't go away. They cannot be washed off with water or blood.

His muscle knits. The bone regrows. The skin renews. The words come back.

Soulmate.

He has a soulmate.

After all he's done, after who he's become. It's not fair to them. They don't deserve whatever the hell he is.

Bucky feels trapped in his own body.

It's not a new feeling, not after Hydra. Not after Steve and the Bunker.

Bucky tries not to remember.

Not for the first time, he's glad to go to sleep.

  
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Like all things, it doesn't last.

  
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Tony Stark is not happy to have them, but he does a good job of pretending he doesn't care either way.

He attends meetings with them, mouths off and snarks, and the Rogues seem to be under the impression that this is Tony Stark: forgiveness received.

But Bucky recognizes the tightness in the other man's body, the strain around his eyes, the burning chasm of gold that flicks sparks and promises hellfire with every fluttering sweep of dark lashes. His resentment is coiled and fever bright, and he might pretend well enough that all is forgiven, but his Iron Man suit ripples beneath his clothes like the agitated turning of a tide.

Bucky wouldn't forgive them either.

The thought alone that the Rogues think they deserve it (or worse, think Tony is the one who's apologies they need) makes Bucky grind his teeth.

For all of Tony's anger, Tony's tired too, nervous, jittery.

There are moments where it almost seems like the Rogues will get the forgiveness they don't deserve, the camaraderie they spurned once before like Tony could just go back to what things were even as he recoils at it.

Bucky understands that too. Ever since he'd woken, the only memory he'd clung to was his own instruction not to look at the words embedded into his skin. But sometimes when he's lonely when he's weak; when he thinks he could persuade his soulmate that it isn't so bad, _I'm not...I'm not...I'm not a monster, I won't be to you,_ Bucky thinks he could look at the words and -

Bucky doesn't trust himself either.

He's selfish and untethered, and it's still not fair that the only reason he's actually grateful to be awake, to be around Tony, is that Bucky-Bucky wants to apologize to him.

Someone should.

Tony didn't have to clear their names, didn't have to get them back, didn't have to do anything - _but he did it anyway._ Whether through his own pragmatic reasoning or a roundabout sense of guilt. Tony doesn't deserve what he got from it. Not the way the Rogues ungratefully parade their return, and not the way Tony has to look his mother's killer in the eye every time he sees Bucky.

Bucky opens his mouth so many times to say the words, but they don't come out.

Tony looks almost grateful.

Bucky decides that if that's what Tony wants, he can do it.

  
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Silence is easy.

No one really talks to him anyway, certainly not with the expectation of a response.

Except this time, Bucky can't help it.

Tony had taken one look at him, returned from a mission, Hydra arm mangled, and declared, "Over my dead body."

Bucky thinks it's the first time Tony's ever spoken to him directly. He wonders if it’s ironic or just fitting considering their history, but at the time, he hadn’t been in the mood to really think about it.

His body metabolizes pain medication too quickly to be of any use, and while Bucky has sustained countless hours of torture over his depressingly long life; having the Hydra arm __hurts __as it grinds into bone and shreds muscle just slow enough for it to heal so it has something to do. He can admit to himself that he’s almost passed out multiple times when he’s finally stopped moving enough for the adrenaline to subside.

He’s practically sagging with relief when Tony disengages the arm by switching off the nerve receptors and Bucky is filled with numbing emptiness; it’s a relief he’d forgotten, a feeling that’s addictive in its floaty euphoria.

Bucky doesn’t know how to describe it except to say __yes, __and if anyone were to ask him - really push him to say words he’s long forgotten how to use, he’d tell them about Tony: how he’d blinked, wide and slow and sweet, and how the golden halo of his eyes looked like the prettiest sunset Bucky had ever seen.

“Thanks,” he slurs, “Thank you,” its repeated with embarrassing earnestness.

Tony physically pauses then, gives him a searching look before he nods with a muttered, “You’re welcome.”

Bucky doesn't know why his skin feels warm, why his heart feels like it's racing.

He doesn't care.

He likes the feeling.

It's probably because the arm isn't attached anymore.

(That's not the reason.)

  
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It takes awhile; it takes time and practice, _but it takes_.

They talk. They linger. They be.

And Bucky doesn't want to have expectations or be overly presumptuous, but Bucky thinks they're friends now. It's a realization that makes him feel like a balloon, filled with that same indescribable euphoria that sends him floating and floating, higher and higher.

Which is when Tony says, "I could design you a new arm."

"Why would you do that?" And immediately, Bucky realizes that's the wrong thing to say.

The cautious hope in Tony's eyes shutters and Bucky scrambles to keep up with the winding trail of Tony's self-deprecation enough to realize what this is. Bucky knows what it looks like to want to reach out, to make things better. Tony doesn't owe him that, he says so.

"I'm as selfish as they say," Tony retorts, "I just...really want to make you an arm. It'll be a technological marvel, and I don't know if you've noticed, Winter Wonderland, but I'm all about being part of a marvel." It's only partly an act, Bucky can feel the truth of it trembling just beneath the surface, right beneath his collarbone, and he stares, quiet and patient for the eruption that comes with Tony's particular brand of aching honesty, "Besides, I-I think we deserve a fresh start. The both of us. No more Hydra. No more of our past actions to lord over the other. What do you say?"

_Yes_, Bucky's heart declares at the self-conscious smile curling Tony's mouth, at the honey-doe of his eyes. _Yes_, Bucky thinks at the warm floaty feeling he feels bubbling at the very thought that Bucky has the opportunity somehow to make someone happy.

"_Yes_," he says aloud and basks in the full-on grin that overtakes Tony's expression, sets a match to him and lights him up.

_Yes. Yes. Yes._

  
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They kiss during the design process a couple of weeks later which inevitably turns into making out so ferociously that they've shed their clothes before they know it's happened. There's a pause. A silent question. An action that brokers no hesitation.

Broken murmurs of, "_yes, yes, yes_" just to make sure there is no mistake for confusion.

Bucky sees the cosmos of Tony's soul reflected in his eyes and oh - _oh, I'm in so much trouble,_ he gleefully decides as Bucky delves in deeper, presses in closer as they were in the beginning of all things, as they were always meant to be.

When it's over, Tony curled on Bucky's shoulder, warm and pliant and content to nuzzle into Bucky's skin in his sleep, Bucky turns the engineer's hand in his, and mouths kisses to every digit. He smiles against the words etched into the heart of Tony's palm where the repulsor cannon had been when he'd aimed it at Bucky on their first meeting - and thanks him again.

For waiting for him. For giving him a chance.

"Thank you," Bucky echoes, and he thinks he feels Tony smile.

  
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The new arm's mooring extends to his collarbone offering more support to what remains of his shoulder.

Bucky musingly thinks it's just a convenient way to hide the words engraved there which makes Tony whine, "Over my dead body is not what I expected my first words to my soulmate would be. Cut me some slack!"

-  
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With the new arm attached, the mooring hides Tony's soul words, but the protective covering proclaims Bucky as STARK, and in the end that's all that matters. When Tony reaches out to him, Bucky's own soul words stare back from the heart of his palm, and Bucky repeats with too much awe, and too much love, "Thank you."

**Author's Note:**

> What up, this is my hundredth fic ~
> 
> Thank you so much to the wonderful, supportive winteriron community for getting me this far. My appreciation for you is without bounds. Writing for this ship has gotten me through so many things and I could never express my gratitude enough. Thank you so much to all of you for reading and showing your love, your kindness has meant the world to me
> 
> [As always](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com/)


End file.
